So...whats for dinner?

My favorite is New Mexican food - much more American Indian influence & hotter chillies than Tex-Mex. Enchiladas for example are usually served flat - sort of like layering lasagna. Houston has 2.239 MILLION people, but only one Mexican restaurant that serves New Mexican food. They've had to add traditional Tex-Mex to their menu in order to survive. My son grew up on Tex-Mex w/lard so that's what he wants when he comes home for a visit. Now I can drag him to my New Mexican grill and we're both happy. Unfortunately it's 30 miles away and MapQuest just clocked the journey at 1 hour 10 minutes at 5pm, so I don't get there very often.

I love 'hot dishes'. Most of my leftovers end up w/a similar treatment now. Today was a rif on Laurie's chicken salsa. Leftover pork chops sliced like for stir fry, Hatch green chili stew, black beans, corn sliced off the cob.

They do lots of 'hot dishes' in Utah too, in addition to endless molded jello salads w/fruit, or occasionally vegetables.

Carole - you are so clever fixing your coffee pot.

Dinner tonight was grilled whole chicken, green beans, and a tortellini salad. On my way home from the client office, I decided that this is what I had to have, so a quick stop at Whole Foods for their 365 brand sun-dried tomatoes. All four pounds that I lost during the last cycle of Ibrance have found their way back home. I have mixed feelings. My oncologist will be pleased.

Minus, I have a whole roll of old black and white film of a pineapple sitting on the end of the ironing board in our NY kitchen. My mother wasn't much of a house keeper, so the ironing board was always open in the kitchen. My father returned from a business trip to Hawaii and brought this amazing thing! Of course, we had no idea when it was ripe, or how to cut it, or anything at all. The only pineapple we had ever eaten was canned. I actually have no memory of eating the thing; just its existence. The world has changed, but still, things that are eaten right where they have been grown the local way, are always the best.

*susan*

Minus, I LOVE New Mexico food too. I would be so happy to find a place that served it in the St. Louis area.

The only fruit I even remember eating as a kid was fruit cocktail from a can, applesauce and the occasional banana. However I do remember my great grandmother sitting in a rocking chair peeling and slicing apples for my cousin and me to eat while she read us a story. A nice memory.

Ditto to Minus's compliment. Gorgeous salad even with those molecules from the onions jumping about!

The weight "regain" sounds like a good thing, Susan.

All the veggies last night were delicious. The corn was sautéed in quite a bit of butter along with diced green chilis from the freezer and diced red bell pepper. Very pretty and the corn was very sweet. The fresh beets were delish and so were the cucumber and tomato. I had a little vinegar and olive oil on my veggies except for the corn and dh had his usual bottled Ken's creamy Vidalia dressing.

This morning we're headed to the gym and afterwards we'll probably have breakfast in town.

I played golf with a woman from one of the Dakotas who joked about all the varieties of jello salad. She said there was fierce competition among the women on whose jello salad was the best. I used to make a gazpacho gelatin salad that had a really good taste and was pretty served on lettuce. I have no idea which cookbook had that recipe. When I get home I may look for it. It was handy for making ahead when company was coming for dinner.

No inkling what dinner will be. Maybe I'll buy some Canadian walleye at Coburn's Supermarket in town.

Nance....WOW! Stunning salad plate! Looks like it belongs on the cover of a cookbook.

I absolutely love authentic food pix....ya know, not air brushed!

In NH this AM...trying to get up the energy for a good walk.....too much car travel, too little exercise this past week. Did see MO yesterday, and she agrees that my current summer "vacationing" is a bit too much for my energy level (surprise, surprise). The good news is that after we return from our stay with my widowed friend at the Vineyard, summer can get more lazy. Whew.....I need it.

Meanwhile, I received an email from the functional meds practice where I receive my allergy care that THEY ARE CLOSING!! Yikes! This is who prescribes and follows my new sublingual serum treatment, which is getting me through my allergy season well so far. Oh dear. So much for cutting edge medicine surviving the wrath of insurance cos.

Carole, I am so impressed with your bike rides! Not sure I would do well with those regional carbo loaded meals you described (I can't return to the last page for the full "hot" name lest I lose this post).

I am poorly versed these days in Mexican food and the true blue vs regional variations. I loved any kind of Mexican or Tex Mex when it arrived in Boston many years ago. Then we lived two blocks from Casa Romero, a very nice Mexican restaurant in Back Bay with a varied menu and really hot salsa we used to love. Sadly, a return there for an anniversary proved disappointing...but maybe our tastes are a bit more refined. In another post I'll share an interesting dining experience we had years ago with the owner, Leo Romero.

Add me to the canned fruit cocktail, iceberg lettuce list!! And canned peaches, pineapple, and grapefruit. Are we dating ourselves with these admissions??

At a restaurant recently, DH ordered a caesar salad and it was made with iceberg lettuce. We were both surprised (read, salad snob horrified) and mentioned it to the waitress. She replied that he could have requested romaine had he preferred that. Hmmmm....

One thing I miss about iceberg is how easy it is to clean....and always recall an old bf teaching me how to easily remove that core. He was gone before the "new" lettuces entered the picture, but I always held on to that tip for whenerver iceberg entered my house.

Great news! Last night as I was packing and doing a bit of outdoor maintenance (we just had a stone path installed on the side of our house, and I "needed" to cut back some ferns so I could walk it), DH, with very little instruction, made "dinner"....BLTs and chips. Everyone starts somewhere! I loved it, and it helped us get on the road while it was still light out.

I'd better get out to walk...tempus fugit!

auntienance… this looks amazing!!!!

SK - good plan on the cupcakes!

Bedo, lol I definitely remember Chun King chop suey and chow mein. That and the Chef Boyardee spaghetti dinner that came in a box were my only early experiences with "Chinese" and "Italian" foods. Salads were a chunk of iceberg lettuce with maybe a piece of tomato and French dressing from a bottle. DH still loves iceberg and would take it over all others if I would consent. I do like a good wedge salad and I will serve it with blue cheese and bacon or a homemade thousand island dressing for DH occasionally. Iceberg really does give you a nice "crunch."

It is 95 here today. DH and I started early this morning sanding and cleaning the deck for refinishing. It was totally in the sun (of course no clouds today!) and extremely hot. We drank so much ice water that we depleted the ice bin in the automatic ice maker. I put a fan on us and wet towels around our necks to keep cool. Fortunately it was easy to step into the house for a/c. A lot of folks who work outdoors in this stuff don't have that luxury. My energy is now officially sapped. So dinner is simple.

When I went to pick up eggs from the egg man this morning, one of the locals who grows corn and peaches was out selling. I bought a bag of peaches, which are wonderful, and some fresh corn. So dinner will be some grilled bratwurst with a potato salad made with a few of the potatoes I dug yesterday and corn on the cob. Maybe a little carb heavy, but I think I deserve it. Corn is just coming in here so I see a Frogmore Stew in my future. DH will probably want the peaches baked in something resembling a pie, but I hate cooked peaches, especially when they're so good in season. I much prefer to eat them just as they are, with the juice running down my arm.

Bedo - Hooray for the brown bread from a can. I still try to keep B&M Brown Bread w/raisins in my cupboard. When I can't find it locally, I order it from Vermont Country Store. And now I'm hungry for Chinese. We had a small, hole-in-the-wall Chinese take out place in the town where I lived and my Dad occasionally picked up some cartons on the way home from the train station.

Lacey - of course we're dating ourselves, but hooray we're still here w/the memories. When I was little my Aunt Hazel served spam - left over from WWII habits I guess. My Mother wouldn't have it in her house.

Special - sounds like you've been working around the house extra hours now that you have AC again.

Spinach salad w/dried cranberries, grape tomatoes, purple onion, hard boiled eggs, grated cheese, & poppy seed dressing for dinner. OK - I cheated. I got the salad at Costco since I spent the day at the med center w/an 87 year old neighbor who needed Mohs surgery for a squamous cell cancer.

My dinner today... Zucchini "Alfredo" pasta with roasted garlic/basil chicken sausage

I have no grill at the moment but grilled peaches with vanilla ice cream sounds really good to me! I guess one could use a grill pan in the house too.

Tonight is rotini pasta with turkey meatballs and marinara, and a green salad. Not very imaginative but I have been having some headache issues that seem to have abated but have left me really tired. These are ice-pick migraines - I have probably had 10 in my life, but this week I have had one every day - I don't know how people with frequent migraines get through it, it is awful. Today is the first headache free day and I am crossing my fingers. I had a hard PT session yesterday - no hip pain but my left quad is screaming - feel weird to be one sided workout-type pain! I just want DH to come home, eat dinner, and I want to go lay in bed and watch TV, lol!

jazzi - did you use one of those vegetti cutters to make the zucchini or do it by hand?

Special, I feel for you. One of the best things about menopause was no more migraines. I suffered from them for years. I'm guessing yours are not triggered by hormones though.

Jazzi, looks like a healthy yummy meal!

Grilled peaches--yes!

Special, I do hope you get relief from that headache induced fatigue soon!

Nance, I happily recall your description of the arm dripping peach eating ...OMG! And peach clafoutis....double OMG!! Lucky DH!!

Minus, I actually love all those age dating memories.

Jazzi....welcome! And what a great salad!

Tonight DH and I went to a local bar/restaurant where I had scallops, broccoli and cole slaw. DH had the lobster dinner which included clam chowder, steamer clams, corn on cob, cole slaw, french fries and watermelon. He is stuffed!! But happy!

Bedo, I do recall salisbury steak when growing up, but do not recall ingesting it.
And yes, jello salads prevailed. I like the idea of the gazpacho salad.....please share that recipe!

We obscenely brought a piece of carrot cake home to eat while watching TV. Yes, Obscene!

Bedo - take kleenex or grab a bunch of napkins for Spy. I laughed so hard, tears were running down my face for much of the movie. At one point my girl friend and I about peed out pants laughing. Perfectly silly, but a riot. Even more funny if you remember the early James Bond movies. Qualifier - lots of "F-bombs" in case language bothers you.

Bedo, those mussels sound good! I actually have a fave gazpacho recipe that I use, but never jelled it. I suppose that I could just add gelatin to the mix?

Nance, your dinner sounds delish, too. My DH would be delerious, and about ten lbs heavier , if he ate at your table nightly with all of your wonderful bread varieties! Garlic knots? Oh my!!

I actually cooked tonight. We first needed to trek to the local food store....along with every other person who was thinking about food on this cool, rainy day. It was amusing to see nine people lined up next to each other in the junk food (chips/dips/pretzles, etc) aisle eyeing all the chip choices. Tomorrow's sun will be a happy change for our diets!

So since DH selected chicken breasts and I had imported some basil and prosciutto from home, I made sauteed chicken stuffed with those two imports, a bit of white wine added and provolone cheese melted over top at end. Those little babies were good! I marinated the leftover breasts for grilling tomorrow night. Our sides tonight were a vegetable/orzo sauté and a huge red lettuce and arugula salad with tomato, onion, kalamata olives, carrots and cukes. We were quite sated!

Hoping to spend sunny time at the beach tomorrow, then Monday we head back home and re-pack for Tuesday's trip to the Vineyard. I did love doing practically nothing today.

I would like to see both of those movies mentioned....pure silliness with clever lines and delivery, given those actors! This summer, DH and I started watching the old seasons of Scandal and are now up to season four. Lordy, the twists and turns! We have been hooked enough to watch an episode or two almost nightly. And there are other series that we used to watch that we need to return to. OITNB, TRUE DETECTIVE, and some new ones that we would like to check out. Hope our brains don't turn to mush!

Susan,, bet you saw this today. Reminded me of you and our pizza with egg. Hope you are feeling well today...

http://cooking.nytimes.com/68861692-nyt-cooking/1409877-in-praise-of-a-runny-egg-9-recipes

Spending an indecisive day given hourly weather changes from hot steamy sun to showers and back again. Think we will pack up and try our luck at avoiding the NH raceway traffic on ourway home, where we hope to arrive for dinner hour. Ha! I make it sound like someone is preparing it for us.

DH put up our four hummingbird feeders this AM so it has been fun to see how quickly the call got out to the local hummers. We have few enough that it is still an "event" to watch them zip in, hover or perch, and then zip back out through the pines.